2005-11-12 04:00:00 PDT Salinas -- This struggling agricultural community and hometown of author John Steinbeck, which became a cause celebre for booklovers when officials decided to close its libraries, is celebrating after voters this week passed a tax that will keep the doors open for the foreseeable future.

"Quite frankly, I think we've restored community pride," said Mayor Anna Caballero, who helped lead a successful private fundraising effort that kept the libraries operating part-time while officials worked toward a long-term solution. That came in the form of Measure V, a half-cent cent sales tax approved Tuesday by 61 percent of voters.

It was a welcome victory after a tough year for Caballero and members of City Council, who were roundly criticized in the community, nationally and even from abroad when an economic crisis led them to announce plans to close all three branches and mothball the collection.

The drastic measure -- which would have made Salinas the largest city west of the Mississippi without a public library -- quickly drew national attention to this working-class town of 150,000. A delegation from the American Library Association made an urgent visit, imploring the city to reconsider, and the New York Times weighed in on its editorial page. Thousands of angry e-mails flooded in to city officials, and news organizations from as far away as New Zealand and Norway showed up to find out what had gone so terribly wrong.

"It really struck a chord on the national level, and we became a poster child for the decline and fall of Western civilization," said Dennis Donohue, chair-elect of the Salinas Chamber of Commerce and a member of Rally Salinas, the private effort aimed at saving the libraries. "There was the irony of it being Steinbeck's hometown and all that stuff, and it did begin to represent something larger than just Salinas losing its libraries."

Last year, cuts in federal, state and county funding had left Salinas with a 24 percent reduction in revenue, and then in November - despite warnings from city officials that libraries and other services would be closed -- voters narrowly rejected two tax measures.

In a city plagued by youth gang violence, four recreation centers were closed, school crossing guards were eliminated, and graffiti removal, crime and fire prevention programs were also shuttered. But it was the loss of the libraries that really stung, Donohue said.

"It really galvanized the community even more than the gang issue has," he said. "It is sort of a 'Field of Dreams' phenomenon. People speak about what libraries meant to them when they were young. You're messing with people's childhoods and with what they do with their kids."

The city's young people were among the first to respond, Caballero said. Two migrant farmworker boys in elementary school persuaded their mom to make cakes they could sell to raise money for the cause. There were lemonade stands, baked goods and T-shirt sales. Someone at the high school came up with the idea of selling rubber wristbands with "SAVE SALINAS" on them. At $3 each, they sold thousands.

"We need libraries," Patricia said. "We don't really have a lot of stuff here, and a lot of kids can't afford books because they cost a lot. You can learn a lot from the library. You can learn history or science. or you can read a fun book. ... It's a place to be quiet and you can actually concentrate a little bit."

Debra Grant, a Salinas parent who helped organize an effort at her child's school to raise money for the libraries, said she felt compelled to do something.

"I'm on the Internet a lot," she said. "People (online) were teasing me - You're from the place without libraries." I was embarrassed. I thought, 'We can't have this."'

The rest of the community quickly followed suit, with churches, service clubs and businesses all offering help. Whole Foods Market in nearby Monterey donated a portion of a day's sale to the effort, as did some local restaurants and coffee shops.

The effort got even more publicity when comedian Bill Murray donated his winnings from the AT&T celebrity golf tournament to the cause. In April, actors Mike Farrell and Hector Elizondo, author Maxine Hong Kingston and United Farmworkers co-founder Dolores Huerta came to town for a "read-in" in support of the libraries. And inmates at San Quentin prison even took up the cause, raising $1,000 by selling doughnuts, pizza and fried chicken to other prisoners.

Caballero had launched Rally Salinas in February with the goal of raising $500,000 in 120 days to keep the libraries on a skeleton schedule through June. Two months later, they'd reached that goal, and by this summer the total reached $769,000 - enough to restore literacy and children's reading programs as well.

The measure passed Tuesday will raise between $10 and $11 million, with about a third of it expected to go to the libraries.

"I remain completely amazed," said Lynne Steele, president of the Friends of the Salinas Library. "I am full of gratitude for all the kind wishes, the money that was sent, the people who worked in the campaigns, the people who voted yes. I'm thrilled to pieces that this happened."